Forget-Me-Not: Help Homeless Kids Blossom, the Peter Yarrow Inspired Campaign, Round Two

How to make Congress pay attention to homeless kids? With my frustration mounting, I remember driving home, listening to Garden Song, a clever little ditty sung by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary. It was 1999, a beautiful spring day. And my pending call from my friend-colleague Barbara Duffield would be our chance to devise a theme for our upcoming unprecedented lobbying of Congress by homeless kids.

The Garden Song haunted me. I could visualize row-by-row, dark soil, rakes, seeds and sprouts of new plants, the hopeful signs of new life (here's a little garden video I did using the song). Barbara and I started talking. I blurted out my garden theme which somehow morphed into Forget Me Not: Help Homeless Kids Blossom. Soon we were begging for thousands of packs of Forget Me Not seeds, generously given and specially labeled by Burpee Seeds.

Over 11,000 packets of Forget Me Not seeds spilled from constituents’ letters onto congressional desks, many bearing heart-felt messages about homeless kids needing education. While in DC, hordes of FMN kids and their chaperones streamed into offices of their congresspersons and asked them why homeless kids couldn’t have rights to go to school. And a massive and poignant assembly featured searing testimony by homeless kids in front of Members of Congress. The combination caused this nation’s million or so homeless students to finally get what every child deserved—the right to a public education.

In 2001, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education AssistanceAct became law. It resembled almost line-by-line the Illinois Education for Homeless Children Act, better known as Charlie’s Bill, named after Charles, an endearing 4-year-old whose photo (©Pat Van Doren) adorned every piece of literature given to Illinois legislators. My (now-retired) congresswoman, Judy Biggert (IL-13,R), took the lead to get this essential piece of legislation passed, a bill she also supported as a state legislator.

When Peter Yarrow shares his wisdom of word and song on May 8, we’ll be coming full circle except for one thing. It was my (naïve) hope that by now Congress would have at least put 2 + 2 together and figured that kids need not only school but also a place to live. Not the case. We’re sliding backwards.  HEAR US is dusting off the Forget Me Not concept, and we’ll ask the audience to contact their Illinois legislators to ask them to reinstate the $3 million taken from homeless kids back in 2008-09, the last time Illinois budgeted for such “frivolous” purposes.

Standing on the stage, Peter Yarrow, social justice champion and folk music icon, will summon the spirit of all civil rights trailblazers of our lifetimes. He’ll light the fire that needs to burn steadily in the hearts of each member of the audience. He’ll plant the seed of justice that will grow beyond the sprouting dreams we had back in 1994 when just getting the kids into school seemed progress.

I’m totally delighted to have my friend, mentor, and champion Peter Yarrow coming to Aurora, IL, the 2^nd largest city in Illinois, dubbed by Michael Stoops of the National Coalition for the Homeless  “the Selma of the 90s,” to kick off our next campaign to demand that homeless children and youth a place to call home.

The blight of greed and injustice threatens to destroy the fruits of our nation—our young people choked by poverty and homelessness. Our collective compassion-fueled nurturing of families and youth will require that we get our hands dirty and break a sweat.

HUD Homeless Policies = Child Abuse and Neglect

Maybe I've stared at too many faces of little ones through the eyes of my cameras.

Maybe I've sat on the edge of lumpy mattresses in crappy motel rooms, surrounded by the squalor that comes from too many people crammed into too small space for too many desperate nights listening to heartbreaking sagas.

Maybe I've shared too many WalMart parking lots with too many families who find safety in the security cameras as they cuddle together for warmth in their cars.

Maybe I've talked to too many youth, some with another generation in tow, who ask me what should they do, where can they find a safe way to escape life on the streets.

Maybe I've grown impatient with waiting...for lawmakers and bureaucrats to wake up--or quit denying--the abysmal dearth of housing assistance (much less affordable and safe options) and other vital safety net programs. (Reminder, the US offers about $144 Billion in home-owner housing subsidies compared to a measly $34 billion housing assistance.)

Maybe I'm carrying around guilt knowing that I was complicit in this homeless family and youth debacle, not intentionally, but by default, for my years running shelters that pretty well ignored the needs of our future--the children and youth, unwitting products of their pathetic upbringing, who become adults, productive or not.

Maybe...but I can no longer be part of the silent--or not-loud-enough--conspiracy.

For years, this nation has blatantly ignored the dire peril that millions of families and youth find themselves in year after year. We had to fight to remove barriers to school for kids without homes (kids now numbering 1 million). We have, for years, been fighting with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the often-hapless agency charged with providing decent affordable housing and homelessness assistance, about including children and youth in their focus (as inadequate as it is).

HUD's newest regulations forcing homeless families/youth to PROVE their homelessness (as if people are clamoring to get into shelters??!) are a horrendous burden to families/youth and shelter staff. Check out this 3-min. video explaining the latest absurdity.

The few groups that continually side with HUD, likely out of fear that the slice of the tiny pie that funds their worthy efforts will get decimated, sadly spread fear and deception like Homeland Security--painting the scene of evil resource depleters coming after what amounts the crumbs from the federal budget table. (Here's a rebuttal to their argument. pdf)

And my friend Barbara Duffield offers these reminders:

a) HR 32 does not mandate that kids identified through four programs are served; it simply makes them eligible and allows communities to make assessments of who is most in need at the moment; b) doubled-up and motel kids are among the most vulnerable, and HUD’s regulations make it impossible for them to be served; today’s homeless kids are tomorrow’s homeless adults

Someone explain to me: when have the feds ever given money to a legitimate cause when advocates haven't fought for it? It sure hasn't been HUD's homelessness assistance programs. I know. I've been in this work too long. Programs serving families--and even worse for youth-- are few and too far between. And HUD makes it seem like families and youth either don't exist or they don't count, I'm not sure.

Where is the outcry about the slash-and-burn of our nation's housing budget (read this illuminating and easy-to-comprehend report, pdf)? 

Having otherwise decent human beings arguing against pulling out all stops to help this most vulnerable and ignored segment of the homeless population--a segment that dwarfs the single adults so disparagingly labeled "chronic" as in a disease--well, it's either a lack of conscience or a lack of awareness of the dire conditions facing families and youth.

In an ongoing effort to convey the desperate situation facing families and youth, a panel of experts--homeless children and youth who know the perils of living without a home and without shelter--addressed Members of Congress in mid-December. Their compelling and heartbreaking stories illustrated beyond a doubt the level of suffering common to families/youth in motels, doubled-up with others, or in other non-HUD-homeless states.  

But what happened? The so-called homeless advocates that have vehemently opposed bringing HUD's definition in sync with other federal definitions ratcheted up their rhetoric dismissing the suffering of the kids in the various non-HUD states of homelessness. Fortunately, the subcommittee headed by homeless kid champion Judy Biggert (R-IL, my congresswoman) passed HR 32, The Homeless Children and Youth Act, which now heads to full committee.

And about the same time, at a national conference of homelessness service providers, the anti-HR 32 rhetoric spewed.

I will not apologize for hammering hard on this issue. Nor will my stalwart band of colleagues (with a growing network of agencies) working hard to get Congress, HUD and the nation to acknowledge--and address--what boils down to federally-sanctioned child neglect.

If we "can't afford" to go all-out to help those in all kinds of homeless situations, if we (from our positions of relative comfort) deem some homelessness tolerable, if we don't demand that resources be immediately and adequately marshaled for the millions of precarious and/or un-housed people in this country, than I'd say we're suffering from a severe and unconscionable lack of compassion.

My conscience pushes me to do everything possible to help. What about yours?

• Contact your member of Congress if she/he is on the House Financial Services Committee (view committee list)
• Urge their support of HR 32. Sample letters here.
• Challenge nay-sayers who insist this nation cannot care for our homeless kids.
• Do something to help.

At least you'll be able to look at kids like this with a clear conscience. 

Tired of the BS from 'Advocates'

Photo (C) Pat Van Doren

I worry that things are so screwy that we'll "eat our young" as we all scramble for a piece of the dwindling, vulnerable federal human services pie. It seems that a group of so-called advocates and unenlightened legislators are poised to do just that--"eat" homeless kids by depriving the majority of them of assistance otherwise available for homeless kids staying in shelters.

Gosh, this homeless definition issue is getting so drawn out that it makes me shake my head in wonderment. I dug through my email trash to look at what the young-eaters give for reasons to oppose forcing Congress to help more homeless kids. Shameful. I'll let their words speak for this atrocious form of advocacy.

If HR 32 (The Homeless Children and Youth Act) were enacted, children who are now defined as homeless, including those who are fleeing domestic violence, living in dangerous situations, or literally sleeping outside, would be forced to compete for scarce resources with millions more who have the advantage of a more stable apartment or house to sleep in every night.

As NAEHCY Policy Director Barbara so adamantly points out, "Defining a problem by the funding currently available to address it is nonsensical. Congress needs to know who and how many people are without housing in order to devise effective solutions.  A narrow definition of homelessness does nothing to reduce the number of people living without their own homes. It simply gives policymakers an unrealistic view of the scope of the problem.

I'd be even more caustic. Continuing a failed policy of counting homeless people, spending money and volunteer/staff time each year to do so, to produce the absolutely bogus AHAR (Annual Homeless Assessment Report...or the capital of Ahar County, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran) is irrational and unconscionable. Furthermore, the last thing we need to do is confuse Congress on matters of poverty.

... HR 32, if enacted, would expand the definition of homelessness to include an additional 2,351,762 low-income housed children each year, who, although their housing may be poor, are not literally homeless (my underline).  

 The esteemed Barbara Duffield rebuts, "H.R. 32, will not require communities to spend HUD funding on doubled-up and motel families and youth. It simply gives them the flexibility to do so when these families and youth need HUD homeless services...Vulnerability determinations must be done on a local, individual basis, after gathering as many facts as possible. Congress is not in a position to decide the relative vulnerability of individual children and adults in communities across the county."

My good friend Pat LaMarche took a swing at this issue in her Christmas HufPo column following the testimony of 6 supremely courageous and articulate kids who testified to Congress about the agony of homelessness (the non-HUD kind). She gets it. She ran a shelter for a few years.

And I'd add that the time and energy we've spent on this issue is time wasted. Not so much for policy-wonks but for families and youth being excluded from possibly getting emergency assistance. How can you look a kid or a desperate parent in the face and say they're not homeless enough...when they are as homeless as the next person, and possibly suffering abuse, among other common experiences? Not "literally homeless"? That reference pushes me over the edge. When do we get to splitting hairs over who's homeless, more homeless, most homeless? I can't even go there. Nor should they.

Had I not just witnessed the debacle between The Susan G. Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood, I'd think our advocacy wars were unusual. In case you missed it, here's the powerful and poignant response on this life-threatening issue as courageously and vociferously offered by Linda, a woman whose own experience with breast cancer gives her the right to weigh in, which she did. Catch her last line. 

I'll be looking for an outraged parent or kid who is willing to go on record like Linda did about the atrocious behavior of "advocates" and public officials that think our pathetic level of assistance directed to the crisis of homelessness is enough. But until then, I'll close with some thoughts of my own...

To pretend that you have any comprehension of the anguish, agony and hopelessness of homelessness is absolute bull shit. To shy away from a united and forceful campaign to begin to relieve millions of people in this country from the sufferings of homelessness makes me disregard your efforts entirely.

If you wish to act upon this outrage, check the HEAR US website, Compassion Epidemic, Hot Alert!

Do Homeless Kids Count?

Somewhere back about 1994-5, Congress was about to do away with the entire McKinney homeless education law. We had just passed the Illinois Education for Homeless Children Act and it didn't take a political scientist to figure if McKinney went down the toilet so would IL EHCA. So we made a bunch of signs including the one on the left that says "the question is not CAN homeless kids count, but DO they count?" next to a picture of Charlie. And we mustered together a protest march and a press conference.

We had Republican legislators, (now retired) State Reps. Suzanne Deuchler and Mary Lou Cowlishaw show up for our conference and they made very supportive comments. Our kids carried signs and were very much a part of the action. Barbara Duffield had just started working for the National Coalition for the Homeless and I had met her once or twice, sizing her up after her predecessor, Joan--name escapes me.

Barbara and I spoke often during this crisis. I learned something from/about her. She wasn't a pie-in-the-sky ivory tower advocate, she was grass-roots and VERY determined. I had to ratchet up my efforts to keep up with her. We involved our shelter volunteers and our homeless brothers and sisters who stayed there if they were so inclined. They were. We sent faxes by the bazillion to our legislators telling them to back off this silly plan.

Mary Lou Cowlishaw made a phone call to her Congressman, Harris Fawell, a personal friend. She said something--I can only imagine it was vintage MLC--"Harris, get them to back off this silly plan..." or something like that.

Denny Hastert sent a staffer to talk with me one night as I was squeezing in a few more faxes before our shelter doors opened at 7. STOP! was their plea--you've convinced us. We quit--the "we" being Congress, brought to their knees by a fierce army of advocates and fax machines.

That was then. This is now.

We need a fierce army of advocates to call and fax their Members of Congress, particularly if they sit on the House Financial Services subcommittee. The committee meets Tuesday, July 15, and they will decide the fate of homeless kids, much like back in the mid-90s.

Back then we didn't have email, blogs, or access to the Internet. Now you can click here
type in your zip code and in a flash get your congressperson's name and contact info (HINT, HINT).

Then you could either call or fax (NO SNAIL MAIL OR EMAIL FOR THIS CAMPAIGN) a brief message to urge them to:
1) NOT SUPPORT THE HEARTH BILL, HR 840, (yup, the same bill we supported until today when it was gutted like a catfish and replaced by a piece of crap). We want them to PULL THE BILL and,
2) If an amendment comes up that allows homeless kids to count (letting HUD count them if they've been ID'ed as homeless by other federal programs), then support that amendment.

HOMELESS KIDS COUNT! What a concept. We fought for this 15 years ago and we're still fighting. We won 15 years ago. Will we win this one? We have a lot to lose, because to some of us, homeless kids count to the max.

Seems to me it's time put aside the fantasy sports and reality TV, dust off the fax machines, and write a message to your member of Congress. Feel what democracy is supposed to be--voters letting their legislators know what's important. HOMELESS KIDS COUNT.